Recently, I read 2-1/2 books that were related, in one way or another, to books and book collecting1. The first two books were Diary of a Bookseller and Confessions of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell. Bythell is the owner and bookseller of the Scottish used bookstore The Bookshop. These books were wonderful for anyone (like…
I lived in Los Angeles from 1983-2002 and I was never a big fan of the town. Being from the east coast, I preferred (and still prefer) four seasons to my year. The Hollywood scene was something I could do without. The long drives and traffic just about any time of the day wore on…
I recently returned from my second trip to Europe. Fifteen years ago I visited Italy, Greece, Croatia, Turkey, and the U.K. On this latest trip across the pond we spent 12 days in Ireland. Across the pond… Traveling to Europe–getting to Ireland–is a multistage process. First, an Uber Black conjured from an app on my…
If you noticed an absence here on the blog recently it is because I am just back from 12 days in Ireland with my family. It was a trip we’ve wanted to do for a long time. Most of our vacation are road trips here in the U.S. That made this our kids’ first overseas…
I’ve gone sailing (on an actual sailboat) about the same number of times that I have played golf. Golf and sailing are similar in that they are both expensive hobbies. The difference for me is that I didn’t enjoy golf, but I love to sail. The first time I went sailing was when I was…
When I turned sixteen years old my parents presented me with golf lessons as a birthday gift. I don’t recall showing any interest in golf, although there is a photo of my when I was maybe a year and a half, holding a plastic golf club and wearing those horrendous pants. The lessons took place…
Great books, the best books, almost always sneak up on me out of obscurity. In 2020, the best book I read was James and Deborah Fallows’ Our Towns, which seemed to come out of nowhere to sweep me into the skies over the country. In 2021, it was Joe Posnanski’s The Baseball 100 that caught…
There is one question I ask myself to determine how much I am enjoying (or not enjoying) the book that I am reading: How much is left? When sitting with a paper book it is an easy question to answer. One look at my position in the book tells me that I’ve just gotten started,…
My favorite word processor of all time is Microsoft Word for DOS 5.5. This is the word processor I was using circa 1992 (30 years ago!) when I first began to write stories with the intention of submitting them for publication. I liked the simplicity of the interface: whitish font on blue background; neat, clear…
Forgive me readers, it has been ten days since my last blog post. Things seem to have gone off the rails a bit here, and I am now trying to get the trains–or posts in this case–to run on time again. What’s happened, I think, is that I have been writing and writing, but not…